Mr. Davis's Memoir concerning the Chinese. g 



a large mass of the community : but a change in the national costume, in 

 consequence of a peremptory command, affects every individual equally, 

 from the highest to the lowest, and is, perhaps, of all others, the most open 

 and degrading mark of conquest. It can never be submitted to, except by 

 a people who are thoroughly subdued ; nor ever imposed, except by a 

 government that feels itself well able to enforce a measure, which is perhaps 

 resorted to for no other purpose than to try, or to break, the spirit of the 

 vanquished. The second conquest of China, in the seventeenth century, 

 by the Eastern, or Manchew Tartars, who had not entire possession of the 

 southern provinces until the reign of Kang-hi, was not so violent, or so 

 bloody, as its first conquest by the Western or Mongols, under Coblai Khan, 

 in the thirteenth ; but it was not less complete, and has already continued 

 much longer. 



After the time of Han, and at the commencement of the period called 

 Woo-tae, or the Five short Dynasties, A.D. 416-620, China is recorded to 

 have been divided into two Empires, the Northern and Southern. The 

 Emperor of the North, however, having promoted a person, named Yang- 

 keen, to the situation of his first minister, and formed an alliance between 

 his own daughter and the minister's son, soon after made Yang-keen sove- 

 reign of the state Suy. During the following reign, this ambitious person 

 took the title of Emperor, and having crossed the Keang, dethroned the 

 sovereign of the south, and united the two empires into one, A.D. 585. 

 The seat of government was soon after removed from Shen-si to Honan, as 

 to a more centrical situation. 



During the Dynasty Tang,* which immediately succeeded, and which 

 lasted from A.D. 620-900, a circumstance highly deserving of attention is 

 the extraordinary power which the Eunuchs of the palace seem to have 

 assumed. For a considerable time, their influence and authority were such, 

 as to enable them to make and unmake emperors at pleasure, like the 



A.D. A.D. 



• After Tang, we have the five latter dynasties 900 .... 950 



Sung 950 .... 1281 



Yuen, or Mongols 1281 .... 1365 



Ming, or Chinese restored 1365 .... 1644 



Ta-tsing, the present Manchows 1644p down to the 



present time. 



Vol. I. C 



